by Susan Cory
“Did you go off that main path at all?” Malone twirled a pen, trying to sound casual.
“No.”
“Okay. Continue with your time-line.”
“I got home at around three, read my mail and spoke on the phone with my friend Ellie Mckenzie for about 20 minutes.” She proceeded with listing her actions right up to “I drove back to Lincoln at six for the dinner.”
Then Stirling asked “Lieutenant, other than a relationship that ended two decades ago and a request for my client to meet him, is there anything else that ties William Reynolds to her?”
“As you know, Counselor, we’re not here to answer your questions. But since it will be on the news tonight, I guess that I can tell you that Mr. Reynolds’ body was found along a path at Fresh Pond. The time of death has been estimated to be between noon and three, right when Ms. Reid just admitted to being in the area.”
Iris made a strangled sound. She could visualize the scene all too well. This was not how she had imagined getting to closure with Will. She might actually have been nearby when Will died. Why had he been there? This didn’t make any sense.
“Are you saying that Will was murdered?”
“I can’t comment on an active investigation, Ms. Reid.”
When Detective Malone next tried to hustle Iris down to the morgue to identify the body, Stirling raised himself to his full height and announced that, as Iris was not a Reynolds family member, she was under no obligation to go through that stress. He was advising her not to do so, reminding the Detective that Iris had come there voluntarily to answer their questions.
Malone knew when he was facing a brick wall and settled for a signature on her sworn statement, finishing up with the cliche not to leave town.
Outside at the curb she turned to her brother and moaned, “Stirling, this can’t be happening. Why would anyone want Will dead? The police can’t possibly believe that I killed him, can they?”
“Iris, listen carefully. You’ve admitted that Will screwed around on you when you were together, giving you a possible motive to want him dead. You’ve admitted that you had a plan to meet him this afternoon. You’ve admitted to being in the area where his body was found around the time of death. Of course he was murdered. Of course you’re a serious suspect. You have motive and opportunity. All they need is means. Still, stewing over an ex-boyfriend’s sins for 20 years seems far-fetched, and we don’t know what method was actually used. But if one more connection turns up between you and Will, there could be enough circumstantial evidence to get you arrested. You can only hope that a more likely suspect turns up. As a side note, being seen as a murder suspect could be very bad for your business, not to mention your reputation. Or mine, for that matter.”
Stirling beeped open his car. “You have your Jeep here, right?”
For some reason she answered, “Uh huh.”
Chapter 12
Iris hobbled up Upland Road from the T stop, entered the sanctuary of her house, and peeled off her heels to examine her new blisters. Sheba padded over and licked her face sympathetically. After Iris poured herself a glass of sauvignon blanc, she heaved herself onto the sofa, and flicked the TV remote to the 11 o’clock news. Will’s death was the lead story. A pedi-cab driver had discovered the body on a path near the Neville Manor Assisted Living Home, located within the boundaries of the Fresh Pond Reservation. A well-groomed reporter, looking solemn and tense with faux concern, stated that the cause of death had yet to be determined. Iris could see shadowy forms moving around inside the police tent in the background. Thank God the reporter didn’t speculate about suspects or persons of interest.
***
On Saturday morning Ellie and Mack bustled in through the kitchen door, pausing to pet Sheba who had scrambled up out of her spot inside the kitchen fireplace to greet them. The dog trailed them to the breakfast table in the sunny bay window and laid her silky snout on Iris’ knee, rolling her eyes meaningfully—but without real hope—in the direction of Mack’s bakery bag.
“Are you okay, Iris?” Mack asked. “I guess you two weren’t exaggerating about this crowd being dangerous.” Tempting aromas wafted from the bag he set on the table.
“How are you holding up, darlin’?” Ellie hugged her. “Did Stirling get the police to leave you alone?”
Iris leaned her head on her hands. “This is a complete nightmare but at least they haven’t Mirandized me yet. I feel like a magnet for dead bodies. My brother-the-lawyer says that if one more thing turns up incriminating me, the police might arrest me for murder.”
“You? Oh come on! No one could possibly think that you had anything to do with Will’s death,” Ellie said.
Mack cut in. “Does this mean it was definitely murder? Are the police sure that he didn’t just stop at Fresh Pond to stretch his legs, then keel over from a heart attack? Maybe he got a blood clot from the long flight.” He arranged peach muffins on one of the square plates Iris had set out.
“They wouldn’t tell us how he died, but they were grilling me about my movements yesterday afternoon, so I doubt that his death looked like an accident. The awful part is that I was walking Sheba right there at around the time he died.”
“You’re kidding! He died near where you walk? Did you hear anything?” Ellie asked while bringing over the French press of coffee.
“It said on the news that it happened on a path up by the nursing home. That’s too far off for me to have heard anything. But if I had made arrangements to meet him there, I suppose I could have slipped away from the dog-walking path to polish him off.”
“And Sheba would have been a witness.” The dog looked up at Ellie eagerly. “What about it, girl? Did Iris kill the old boyfriend?”
“This sounds like someone’s trying to set you up, Iris. How many people know you walk your dog there every afternoon?” Mack asked as he lifted a chunk of muffin to his mouth.
“I’ve been thinking about that. Anyone who googled me would find the Cambridge Chronicle article about my work on the Fresh Pond advisory committee. I said in the interview that I walk my dog there every afternoon.”
“So, it could have been anyone,” Mack said.
“Well, anyone who knew of the relationship between Iris and Will, anyone who knew that Will was going to be here this weekend, anyone Will trusted enough to agree to meet with,” Ellie pointed out.
“In other words, someone at the dinner last night,” Iris said.
There was silence as they finished up the last muffin crumbs. Sheba sighed heavily and flopped back down in her fireplace den.
Finally Mack said “I may have collected a clue last night about Carey’s death.”
“You didn’t tell me this!” Ellie said.
“I was waiting for our debriefing session.”
“What is that—Hardy Boys etiquette 101?”
“There were only two of them. They didn’t need to wait.”
“Enough you two—WHAT IS THE CLUE?”
“After the police came, G.B. got up and moved to your seat, Iris, next to Jerry. When Detective Connors announced that Will’s dead body had been found, I heard Jerry whisper to G.B. “It’s payback from Carey for the brownie.” Mack beamed at them expectantly.
“What? Are you sure that you got that right— the brownie?”
Iris’ expression took on a vacant look. “Wait—a—minute. Wait—a—minute. I think I may know what he’s referring to. At the graduation party, I remember Will offering Carey a brownie from the refreshment table.” She squinched her eyes and tried to remember the scene. “Damn, that must’ve been how the drugs got into Carey’s system. But why? Why would Will want to get Carey high?”
They stared at each other as the wheels turned, then all three spoke at once:
“Will must’ve wanted him to make a fool of himself after showing everyone up for three endless years.”
“If Jerry knew about it, I wonder if any more of them were in on the joke.”
“Will must have wanted to get Carey disoriented
so he could push him over the balcony.”
The last comment came from Mack and the women stared at him.
“Isn’t that what we’re talking about here—who pushed Carey over?”
“Well, yes, but Will as the murderer? I know he was a complete jerk, but a murderer—someone I slept with?”
Ellie put an arm around her. “We always said it had to be one of them. He’s one of our suspects.”
“Wait a minute,” Mack said. “Ellie, you said that if Jerry knew about the drugging plan, then maybe another of them knew as well. What if getting Carey to eat the brownie was the extent of Will’s involvement? What if someone else took advantage of Carey’s altered state and did the pushing? After all, someone’s now murdered Will. Isn’t it more likely that Carey’s murderer has killed again?”
“Otherwise, if Jerry was on the right track, and this second murder was to avenge Will’s drugging and killing Carey, there’s only one person we know who would take it on themself to act as Carey’s avenger…”
Iris looked pained. “Yeah, me.”
Chapter 13
Iris convinced a sullen hotel receptionist to phone up to the three rooms. There were many reunioneers milling about in the lobby, but no one seemed to need immediate attention, so Iris couldn’t understand why he was acting so beleaguered. The baby-faced youth dressed in a preppy uniform rolled his eyes after each fruitless call. Okay, she wasn’t technically a hotel guest, but she was trying to contact his guests. He didn’t know that they wouldn’t welcome her call. She’d threatened to round the reception desk herself before the clerk agreed to check their status on his computer screen. At least none of them had checked out.
According to the reunion schedule, if they were following it, the group would be attending what was dubbed ‘picnic on the lawn’ at GSD at noon, followed by a round-table discussion in the auditorium on “Unmodernism” led by Roger Barton, the class Boy Scout.
She left the hotel and raced to her Jeep just as a meter maid approached brandishing a ticket pad. Iris smiled triumphantly as she started the engine and squealed out into the congested streets of Harvard Square. She crawled along the dozen blocks toward the GSD, her eyes scanning for another parking place. She should have walked the mile from home or even fed the meter and left her car in the square.
The design of Gund Hall, which housed the Graduate School of Design, made no pretense of fitting into its context. Amid the brick Georgian architecture of the nearby quadrangles, Gund Hall rose as a stand-alone testament to 1960’s concrete Brutalism. The building resembled a giant football bleacher with each floor as a rising step. Outside, you entered the building by walking under the giant top step, which rested on tall, skinny columns, an entry that was more menacing than welcoming. Iris hurried through lobby and lunchroom to the back lawn.
She saw a long line of people snaking past Roger Barton, who was punching lunch vouchers and handing out book bags stamped with GSD emblems.
“Hey there, Iris! We missed you this morning at the brunch,” he called to her gaily, unaware of her new status as a murder suspect.
As she filled out a name tag, she heard another voice behind her.
“Roger, have you seen G.B. anywhere?”
Iris half-turned to eye a well-built young man with a purposefully clenched jaw.
“I think he’s in the auditorium setting up for the symposium, Steve,” Roger gestured vaguely.
Iris bustled back into the building after Steve, but instead of following him straight ahead to the lobby she turned left toward the open studio levels. She raced up the open stairs two at a time and out the back of the second floor studio into a deserted hallway. After sprinting down its length, she tried to quiet her ragged breathing and cautiously pushed open the door to the auditorium’s balcony. Ducking down to crawl as she reached the balcony’s edge, she heard Steve’s raised voice below.
“Why didn’t you give me some notice? Please—you made me look like a moron. I can’t prepare to cover one of your semiotics classes with no advanced warning.”
She could barely hear G.B.’s placating response.
“… sorry… it was a… yesterday… never… terribly…” he soothed.
Iris eased back onto her haunches. So, G.B. had blown off teaching his semiotics class the day before. The day that Will was murdered.
“I just need you to understand. You put me in an awkward position.”
There was some more indecipherable conversation, then one of Piper Auditorium’s enormous doors slammed shut.
Iris backtracked to the hall and took the fire stairs up to the fourth floor administration level. The bulletin board she remembered was still hanging outside the Registrar’s office. She scanned the schedule for the architecture classes. Professor Broussard’s Semiotic class met on Fridays from one until three. O-kaaay. He’s definitely on the suspect list.
Pleased by her discovery, Iris descended to the first floor, prepared to unmask the secrets of the other suspects. She spotted her first quarry sitting on a spread of napkins which had been arranged on the patchy ground under a towering elm. Alyssa’s blue sweater and white pants stood out from the sea of black and grey architectural mufti around her.
“Hi, Alyssa. Hello Adam. We didn’t get much of a chance to talk last night. Did you have to stay long with the detective?”
Alyssa eyed her warily and snapped “Will was our friend.” Adam silently glowered.
“And he was my boyfriend, remember?” Iris parried.
“Well, you’re the one the cops hauled off.” Adam bit off a piece of his roast beef sandwich with a smug look.
“They wanted me to identify the body. Will and I had both moved on with our lives. I didn’t even know the adult Will. But you guys must have kept in touch.”
Alyssa’s eyes gleamed meanly. “We went to his wedding the year after graduation. He married Rachel Allen from the Registrar’s office. But then, with kids and work, we all drifted apart. Our lives are so busy, you know. Or maybe you don’t know. You’re still single, right?”
“I can’t imagine who would want to kill Will,” cuckolded husbands, jilted lovers, Rachel, “but it probably had to do with Will’s life in California. Still, it does seem odd that it happened back here in Cambridge,” Iris paused for effect, “so near the setting of Carey’s death 20 years ago, the last time this group was all together. I wonder if those two deaths could be related? After all, Will was the one who gave Carey that drugged brownie.” Iris was warming to her performance, trying to shake loose some reactions.
“What are you playing at, Iris—you think you’re the cops?” Adam practically hissed. Then he stuffed his sandwich wrapper in a brown bag, got to his feet and stalked off. Alyssa scurried after him, turning back to glare at her. “This was supposed to be a fun weekend.”
“God forbid I should spoil the fun,” Iris returned.
She sat thinking for awhile then surveyed the lawn. She couldn’t see C.C. or Jerry, but spotted Patty Kim, a sweet woman who had been friendly with Carey, and wandered toward her.
“Hi, Patty. What are you up to these days?”
“Oh, hi Iris. I’m living in Watertown, working for Sasaki. I saw one of your houses in the Sunday Globe Magazine. I really liked it.”
Iris felt ashamed of herself. Other than Ellie, she hadn’t bothered to stay in touch with the few members of her class that she had liked. They chatted about Norman’s house and Patty’s three kids. Then Patty brought up the subject of Will.
“I saw on the news that Will Reynolds died on his way to the reunion. I’m so sorry, Iris. I know that you guys had been close.”
“It’s awful. I still can’t believe it. And the strange thing is that thinking about this reunion kept reminding me about Carey’s death.”
“Ohhhh, me too. Poor Carey. Being back here at GSD, I keep expecting to run into him.” She leaned in closer. “You know, I never believed that it was an accident. When the autopsy said that he was stoned, I knew that someone else
must have been involved.”
“That’s what I thought too!” Iris said. “Carey told me he never took drugs—even aspirin. His system was too wired. I told that to the detective in charge, but he didn’t want to hear it. In their minds, if a student flew off a balcony, the kid was a druggie. End of story. I remember seeing his family at the funeral. His parents and a sister live somewhere around here. They all wore the same bewildered expression as Carey. It broke my heart. Patty, back at the graduation party, did you notice anyone following Carey into that bedroom with the balcony?”
“No, and I’ve thought about it again and again. I had gone to the bathroom after he and I were talking and he must have wandered in there then. God, I’ve wished I could redo those few minutes.”
“I know what you mean. And now there’s been another death. I keep thinking they must be related. But I don’t remember any connection between them, beyond Will remarking on how brilliant Carey was. Can you think of any?”
“Well, they were both in G.B.’s design studio that last term. You were in it too, right? I remember watching the last crit. Everyone else in that group, other than you, seemed to be bristling over all the praise he was getting. It was strange because they were all good designers too. If Carey hadn’t been in the same class, one of them would’ve been the class star.”
“Yeah, strange and tragic. Listen, if you think of anything else, maybe something that happened during the party, would you please give me a call? I have a card here somewhere…” She fished one out of her purse.
People around them were getting up and moving into the building. Patty stood up and brushed the crumbs off her skirt. “Are you going in to hear the panel?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll catch you later, Patty. It’s been good to see you again.”
By now, most people had wandered inside either to snag a good seat in the auditorium or to look at the lobby-mounted exhibits of work by the reunion class. Iris headed for the lobby. Some foresighted administrator must have stored a sampling of presentation boards from back then for precisely this purpose—to flatter alumni into opening up their checkbooks.
